Can I Have This Dance For The Rest Of My Life?
by WeBuiltThePyramids
Summary: Walter and Paige talk at Happy and Toby's reception. Oneshot.


**So this is a oneshot that was inspired by conversation at FanForum, and it was the first thing in several weeks that made me go OH MY GOD I MUST WRITE THIS so here it is. It's kinda my idea on how the end of the season could go, big Quintis wedding ep, Waige quietly getting together at the end, and then the hiatus would be the Quintis honeymoon and they'd return in the premiere.**

* * *

"Hey."

Walter looked up as Paige sat in the chair beside him. "Hey," he responded, glancing at her before returning his gaze to the direction of the food table. One of the trays had a dent in it and was no longer symmetrical. It bothered him.

"It was a wonderful ceremony," Paige commented, and he grunted in agreement. The week since his memories of space had come rushing back when something had caused his protective mental levee to break had been painful, awkward, _heartbreaking_ because everything was out in the open and yet he and Paige still interacted like uncomfortable exes, despite having never been anything to now put _ex_ in front of. She admitted to telling him that she loved him when he, in his oxygen deprived stupor, had poured his heart out to her. He knew she had only done it to bring him home, and he was grateful that she had saved his life. That didn't mean it didn't hurt, having a memory of him telling her he loved her and her saying it back, knowing how it felt to hear it, and knowing that none of it was real.

She had approached him, just the day before, telling him that she didn't know if she had a right to say what she was about to, but she couldn't bear the tension between them and she missed him. He'd told her that he missed her, too. They'd hugged. The twenty three hours that had passed since that hug had been painful. He knew their every point of contact during the embrace and it all ached, as if she was supposed to be there, completing him, and if she wasn't in his arms there was a permanent, physically agonizing void.

"Do you...maybe..." she said hesitantly, and he turned to look at her, noticing how she was wringing her hands and biting her lip. She paused, cleared her throat, and started again. "Do you want to dance?"

"Oh." He thought a moment, then nodded. "Sure."

She smiled, looking relieved. "Good."

He reached for her hand, wondering as soon as he did so if that was appropriate. They were heading out to the floor, but what if...his worry dissipated when she took it without hesitation, letting him lead her over to an open space. They came together easily, without the awkwardness of their first time. They didn't begin to dance with the flare that his brain had allowed him in space, but this was easy, it was comfortable, it was _intimate_ and Walter wondered if agreeing to this dance had been a mistake. He didn't recognize the song that was starting, but when the lyrics began, he gritted his teeth, hoping that she wouldn't notice.

 _This could be it. I think I'm in love. It's love this time. It just seems to fit._

He let out a deep breath through his nose, wanting to keep control, feeling himself losing it and wishing he could let that happen. Walter had never forgotten their first dance, the first time he'd held her, when he'd been temporarily distracted from the job at hand and overcome by a need to keep her close to him. _You enjoyed dancing with Paige. Holding her. Being close. You didn't want it to stop._

He'd been so damn angry that someone who didn't know him had been able to read him so well. Hell, he got mad when _Toby_ figured him out, and that woman certainly wasn't...

Thinking back, he'd slowly come to realize that he'd always been transparent when it came to her. At least to everyone but Paige herself. He'd taken far too long to express feelings for her on purpose.

God, she looked beautiful. He had no idea what type of dress she was wearing, but it showcased her elegance. Beauty had never been something Walter considered important – and it certainly wasn't why Walter had fallen in love with her – but as he'd grown closer to Paige, he'd become more and more aware of her physical attributes. _It should be called a galaxy,_ he'd said to the hallucination, in reference to the first dress he'd ever seen her in, _because it contains a heavenly body._ He wasn't sure when he'd come to such awareness of her, but at some point he'd gotten there and it was startling. She was someone he felt safe around, he loved spending time with her, he was attracted to her and he actively wanted to better himself for her and he almost hated all of it because he knew that it was all the same for her and everyone always said that this was exactly the type of relationship that would endure through everything.

And yet.

"Walter?"

He blinked. "Hmmm?"

"You're looking at me."

Well, of course he was. They were dancing.

"I mean..." she looked flustered. "I mean, I know, logically, you'd be looking at me. _I'm_ looking at _you_. But you look at me as if I have some sort of power over you...and you look at me as if you don't mind. I don't understand that, Walter. You always like being the one wielding the power. And yet you look at me like this."

Walter licked his lips. "Well, you know. It's...everything...has always been different with you." _You know how I feel._ He cleared his throat. "Paige?"

Her voice was quiet. "Yeah?"

"Things have been different since I remembered."

He saw a bit of the light go out of her eyes. "Yeah. Uh..." He waited for her to speak, but the silence stretched on. He decided to continue, say what he had to, because he couldn't keep doing this. This was too hard. "You know. How I feel about you." She nodded. He nodded back, knowing his voice was going to change, to crack, when he spoke again, but forging on. "I love you. And I want to be with you, and I want you to want to be with me but if you don't..." he drew in a painful breath. "If you don't, just wait to tell me until this song is over. Please just let me have this dance."

Paige opened her mouth. "Walter – "

"Please," he interrupted, looking agitated. "Just let me have this dance. Please wait for the song to end."

She nodded slowly. "Okay."

They slowly moved around on the floor, staying in the corner. Happy and Toby were still in the center, Toby's lips moving a mile a minute, probably telling Happy what his long version of his vows were – her compromise to allow him a big wedding came at the price of him agreeing to not be long winded at the end of the aisle. Cabe and Allie were smiling at each other just to the side of the newlyweds, and in the opposite corner, Sylvester was twirling the second grade daughter of one of Toby's friends, smiling at her giggles. Walter noticed all of it because his brain was incapable of not taking in his surroundings, but every other observation, other than the woman in his arms, was nothing but an afterthought. She was granting him this, this dance, this song, and as much as it was going to hurt when the music faded out and she moved from his arms forever, he would deal with that, that permanent physical void, when the time came.

 _The way you hold me, the way you show me, that you adore me, oh, when you kiss me._

He bit his lip, his eyes locked on hers, surprised that she wasn't breaking the eye contact. He almost wished she would. Gazing into her eyes, under these circumstances, felt almost like torture.

He wouldn't have this with anyone else. He'd spent thirty years of his life believing that romantic love was imaginary, or, if it did exist, frivolous and not worth his time. He didn't connect with people easily. He didn't trust easily. There were very few people he felt truly safe with. He even had limitations around the team – even Paige – he hadn't wanted them to see him vulnerable after his car accident. He'd hid from them, almost ashamed. But after the space disaster, he'd wanted her near him, been grateful to her for staying at his side when he wasn't able to be up and about, for helping change his bandages and dabbing his face after he'd vomited his first round of medication. He wasn't normal – and something like that wasn't normal for him. Allowing – flat out wanting – her to care for him, to see him in not only a physically weakened state but a mental one as well, had really made him realize _just how much_ he trusted her.

 _That's the basis of any lasting relationship. Even for people like us._

He wasn't the type of person that _eventually, there will be someone else_ applied to. There wouldn't be. She was it. Everything. Her. Paige Dineen.

His stomach tightened in sheer dread as the music slowly faded into nothing. Paige leaned in, her lips near his ear. "I love you, Walter."

His response was immediate, louder than anything either of them had said all night. "Huh?"

She gave him a small smile. "You said to wait until the song was over."

The next song was starting, but Walter, for possibly the first time in his life, was completely unaware of everything around him. It was as if he and Paige were the entirety of everything. He shook his head, trying to regain some control. "What? You..." He bit his lip. "Yeah? You do?"

She gave a little laugh. "I do," she said. "Though," she added with a chuckle, "I feel that word choice isn't appropriate given the circumstances."

"So..." He'd been expecting to leave the dance floor, to...he wasn't even sure what his plan had been, or if he'd even had one. _She loves me. She loves me. She loves me._ "So do you wanna...keep dancing, then?"

"I'd like that." Her voice was still quiet, keeping the conversation between them, but now Walter heard an extra level of intimacy behind it. "I think...I'd like to dance with you for a long time."

"You're not just talking about dancing, are you?" He asked, drawing her closer.

"That's right," she said softly. "I'm talking about us."

"Us."

"Yeah."

"Are you _sure_?"

She glanced around, then, appearing satisfied that no one was watching, closed her eyes and brushed her lips against his. He kissed her back, catching her upper lip between his, giving a depth and duration to the kiss that she probably hadn't intended, given where they were. But she responded, sucking lightly at his lower lip, rubbing her nose along his when their lips did separate. "You know," he said, concerned, "sometimes when you look at me, I see this...this complete...affection, in your eyes. It gives me this nice...warm feeling. But then other times you look at me and seem afraid. And that makes me wonder if I'm misreading you when you look at me in other ways." He bit his lip. "That concerns me because if I'm doing anything..."

"No." She said it quickly, loud enough that someone nearby – someone Toby had TA'd with? – glanced over at them. She tipped her head, lowering her voice again. "Walter, I've been abandoned. People have been leaving my whole life. And when I feel myself getting close to someone, it scares me. At first, that's what I liked about...about my previous...relationship, don't," she said, when he set his jaw. "What was nice about it, at first, was it didn't scare me. But that was one of the real indications to me that it wasn't what I really wanted. I want passion, and despite everything, I still want to have someone that I am terrified to lose. And Walter, the only times since I've come to Scorpion that I've been truly, truly afraid, is when either you or Ralph were in danger. When it's either of you, I wonder how I'm going to keep living if you don't come home. And I want that can't sleep, can't breathe without you kind of love, even if it means risking being hurt again."

"I don't want to hurt you." He slid his hand up her back slightly, so he could draw her closer. "I don't want you to look at me and be scared." He wanted to tell her that she was everything, that he was a genius and he knew a lot of things but one thing that he knew with absolute certainty was there would never be anyone else and he would never stop loving her. But there were too many thoughts running through his head simultaneously for him to trust that he could sort any of them into a coherent thought that would reassure her. "Paige, please tell me what I can do."

"Stop it," she said, but she didn't sound annoyed. "Just love me. And I'll love you. And the rest will fall into place."

* * *

"Stop, stop, Happy," Toby said, rushing to get out of the car before she reached the door of the garage. "I have to carry you!"

She rolled her eyes. "Doc, you don't have to carry me over every threshold we pass through for the rest of our lives."

"I know," Toby said, and when he added "but I just like doing it," Happy silently mouthed the words right along with him, a smile playing over her lips. He locked the car, scooped her up, and pressed a kiss to her lips. "You ready to get back to reality, Mrs. Curtis?"

When she responded with "Quinn – Curtis" it was his turn to silently mouth the words. "I love you," he said with a smile.

She grabbed his hat and set it on her own head, smirking. "Love you too, doc."

"We're home!" He declared as he marched into the garage.

Cabe was standing at Sylvester's desk, a coffee mug in his hand, deep in conversation with the younger man. They looked over at the newleyweds. "He-e-hey," Cabe said, raising his mug. "Look who it is. The married couple. Long time, no see."

"That be us!" Toby declared, spinning around before lowering Happy to the ground. "I thought you might not have recognized us with our tans, but then again, we _were_ inside the hotel room a good amount of the time, so..."

"Please spare me the details," Sylvester said. "I've had enough details this week."

"What?" Happy asked.

"Hey guys!" Paige jogged down the stairs, a big smile on her face. "Oh, it's so good to see you!" She was coming for a hug, and Toby smiled, opening his arms as she ran her fingers through her hair and then threw hers around him. "Oh, gosh, it's felt so weird without you guys around."

"We were only gone two weeks," Happy said, accepting a hug. "Hey, Dineen."

"Hey, lady," Paige said affectionately. She looked back toward the loft. "Walter! They're home!"

He appeared moments later, smiling as he descended to the ground floor. "Hey guys. Welcome back. How was the honeymoon?"

"Wonderful," Toby said. "We have a ton of photos. All of which are real and would convince anyone investigating our union that it comes from nothing but love."

"Well," Walter said, going behind Paige's desk to bring her chair around so he could sit in it., "that would be expected, seeing as your relationship is genuine."

"Walt," Happy said. "Are you aware that your shirt is inside out?"

"What?" Walter looked down. "Oh. Huh. Must have been running behind this morning."

Paige smoothed down his backwards collar. "We'll fix that before the meeting this afternoon."

Toby's eyebrows shot up when she gave him a peck on the cheek, and the two of them shared an affectionate look. "Oh my God," he said, his jaw dropping. He looked at Happy, who had seemed to make the same connection. "You two...you are...you are?"

"Uh, yeah," Paige said, easing over to sit on his knee. "We are."

"Oh my gosh, this..." he looked at Sylvester and Cabe, "you guys know." They nodded. "Why didn't anyone tell us?"

"We weren't keeping it a secret," Walter said. "It's not like that."

"We just...you know," Paige said, "we didn't want to steal your thunder. You guys just got married."

"That's not stealing our thunder," Toby said, "we've just spent two weeks basking in our love, we're home now, you don't have to feel like you can't tell us that you're now basking in yours." He glanced at Happy. "Stealing our thunder is more like, like getting together at our wedding, or something."

He blinked, folding his arms as Walter and Paige glanced at each other. "You got together at our wedding, didn't you?"


End file.
